Crimson Guitars doing kits now

DiscoStu

Saw it on their Facebook page earlier, Crimson Guitars are launching kits in time for Christmas delivery. Looks to just be Strat and Tele for the time being, and quite pricey too but I imagine top quality.

https://crimsonguitars.com/product-category/kit-guitars/

WezV

Is it just a body and neck?  I would think a good quality kit with standard but good parts would be a gap in the market

DiscoStu

Yeah just body and neck by the looks of it. 

guitarfishbay

Well people can source their own choice of hardware pretty easily and cheaply already if they wish. Probably better to leave it just as the body and neck as it’d only increase cost and people probably want to fit the stuff they pick themselves 

WezV

guitarfishbay said:

Well people can source their own choice of hardware pretty easily and cheaply already if they wish. Probably better to leave it just as the body and neck as it’d only increase cost and people probably want to fit the stuff they pick themselves 

Nah, I get it.  It’s just not a kit.  A kit is a self contained project with parts you can choose to upgrade; but you still get a good quality guitar as it is.

Problem is we associate that concept with the £1-200 kit.  Imagine it in a £4-500 kit instead.  

guitarfishbay

WezV said:

guitarfishbay said:

Well people can source their own choice of hardware pretty easily and cheaply already if they wish. Probably better to leave it just as the body and neck as it’d only increase cost and people probably want to fit the stuff they pick themselves 

Nah, I get it.  It’s just not a kit.  A kit is a self contained project with parts you can choose to upgrade; but you still get a good quality guitar as it is.

Problem is we associate that concept with the £1-200 kit.  Imagine it in a £4-500 kit instead.  

A fair point re: definition of kit.

I reckon they’ll do ok with these off the back of the brand name anyway, even if they’re comparatively more than some brands they’re not really super expensive either

DannyP

My KBG kit (in the £100-200 bracket) was good timber and nicely woodworked, but I don't know why they bother including the crap machine heads, pickups, strings, "cable" etc. I'm sure they largely end up in the bin anyway. I'd rather pay £20 less.

DannyP

My KBG kit (in the £100-200 bracket) was good timber and nicely woodworked, but I don't know why they bother including the crap machine heads, pickups, strings, "cable" etc. I'm sure they largely end up in the bin anyway. I'd rather pay £20 less.

TheOtherDennis

The KBG kits I had were a mixed bag. The woods were very nice, but the neck cavities in both were too small, the holes they drilled for the bridge, tailpiece and pots were needed to be enlarged too, and the electrics were nowhere near the quality of the woods. (In the kits I got, they were simply a collection of loose wires - there was a wiring diagram with wires of different colours to the ones in the kit so to all intents and purposes, for someone like me even that was useless.)

So for me, I'd prefer to pay for some good woods like the above and then source everything else, because that's what I had to do anyway.

Having said that, I could easily do that by sourcing the body and neck from different places too, so I'm not really helping at all here. Ahem.

guitarfishbay

TheOtherDennis said:

So for me, I'd prefer to pay for some good woods like the above and then source everything else, because that's what I had to do anyway.

Having said that, I could easily do that by sourcing the body and neck from different places too, so I'm not really helping at all here. Ahem.

Guess it depends if any deliberate matching is going on with the pieces in the Crimson Kits

WezV

I guess I am remembering the old carvin kits, where you got everything you needed to put together a decent guitar.  Some would still swap out parts, but it wasn’t needed.

if they added the option to get a full guitars worth of stuff it would be a kit.  Look at most amp kits, they are customisable, you can chose to exclude stuff you don’t want or upgrade certain elements if needed in the knowledge it will all go together without too much modification.  A guitar version of that is an exciting prospect and well within crimsons capabilities.

i guess the prevelance of cheap guitar kits with shit parts and no custom options skews the perception of what we expect from a guitar kit.

WezV

Seems the carvin bolt T is still available, still customisable...
https://www.kieselguitars.com/catalog/kits/gk1

GSPBASSES

I don’t do complete kits any more, the photo below is one of my high-end kits I use to do.  It’s very doubtful if there is a market for this type of kit any more, just too expensive. This kit would sell between £750 to £850 depending on some of the components. The neck and body are obviously hand built by me. The hardware is about the best you can buy. It’s doubtful if you will want to upgrade any of the major components, although obviously some people will prefer a different tremolo or different pickups, maybe don't like locking tuners. But what you have in this kit is everything you need to make a top-quality guitar, and I believe could be as good as any custom shop Strat. This is where the problem is, everybody's got their own ideas of what the best pickups, tremolo and tuners. If I was to market this kit, absolutely guaranteed anyone who was interested would want something different in it. It will not be practical to carry so many different pieces of hardware.

 Hold on I can hear people saying, you can go on eBay and get Fender for that sort of money, and you're right. But not everybody wants to buy ready-made guitar, there's nothing quite like building your own guitar, and that feeling when you strap on and plug it in for the first time, there just something very special about that moment.

I now wonder is the market big enough for all these different companies offering Fender type necks and bodies. It's always been a crowded marketplace with the cheap stuff coming from China and the Far East, plus American companies claiming “made in America” when we know it comes from China, I think it’s going get to stage very soon were Fender type guitar bodies and neck market will so saturated that it will become unviable and unprofitable. We've seen at least three companies in the last couple weeks, all more or less offering the same Fender type products. And it seems that a lot is coming off the same CNC machine. At least we know the guys are Crimson guitars actually make their bodies and necks, and know what they are doing, as opposed to some who are just buying in and selling on.

 I'm so glad that the Fender type necks and bodies is a very small part of what I do, possibly less then 10%. Fortunately for me, the CNC guys in this country are sticking with the easy bodies and haven't got onto the Gibson stuff, although one of them has, but I don't consider him to be any threat to me as his prices are so much higher than mine. I think my market share will be pretty safe for the next year or so, after that, I won't care if they do start making Gibson stuff, because I'll be out of the retail market, and only making for other custom builders, I know I've been saying that the last two years or so, but this time it's going happen.

 

The kit only comes with one neck.

DrBob

@GSPBASSES you sold all that for £850 ? And were you actually able to make much profit on that ? I ask because I can see what looks like £150-175 worth of tuners & trem, same again with pickups, £20 of loom,strap buttons etc, plus pickguard, plus strings, plus strap, plus gig bag. I get that you wont be paying retail on the components but it doesn't look like you're leaving yourself an awful lot of 'meat on the bone' so to speak ?

Dont get me wrong I'm very grateful that you sell the necks & bodies for the prices you do and with the news that you'll be stopping soon that's definitely galvanised my thinking on getting that Jazzmaster body we've discussed recently built before it is too late !

DrBob

And actually, the thought I had was, is there any scope to customise any aspect of the Crimson Guitars offering ? Different neck profile, fingerboard rad ? fret size ? that sort of thing. Because if you cant I think I'd still go elsewhere for that price

GSPBASSES

@DrBob, sorry a slight misunderstanding, that kit was from about 5 years ago, maybe longer. I would imagine if I put that kit together now it would be way over £1000. Although everything in the photo I still have in stock. I did in fact stop selling kits and taking guitars to complete finish a long time ago, but still have lots of hardware. I was seriously thinking of putting that kit and all the staff in the photo in my Black Friday sale. 

A bit of pre-advertising for Black Friday. I'm going to have with any luck, time permitting some interesting telecaster coming up. Hopefully, three of them, a Jim Root, a "F" hole thin line with a flame maple cap on swamp ash body, plus a sort of copy of a Princes telecaster.

DrBob

GSPBASSES said:

@DrBob, sorry a slight misunderstanding, that kit was from about 5 years ago, maybe longer. I would imagine if I put that kit together now it would be way over £1000. Although everything in the photo I still have in stock. I did in fact stop selling kits and taking guitars to complete finish a long time ago, but still have lots of hardware. I was seriously thinking of putting that kit and all the staff in the photo in my Black Friday sale. 

A bit of pre-advertising for Black Friday. I'm going to have with any luck, time permitting some interesting telecaster coming up. Hopefully, three of them, a Jim Root, a "F" hole thin line with a flame maple cap on swamp ash body, plus a sort of copy of a Princes telecaster.

Stop it, I've got the money put aside for the Jazzmaster stop tempting me with Tele's !

gavin_axecaster

GSPBASSES said:

@DrBob, sorry a slight misunderstanding, that kit was from about 5 years ago, maybe longer. I would imagine if I put that kit together now it would be way over £1000. Although everything in the photo I still have in stock. I did in fact stop selling kits and taking guitars to complete finish a long time ago, but still have lots of hardware. I was seriously thinking of putting that kit and all the staff in the photo in my Black Friday sale. 

A bit of pre-advertising for Black Friday. I'm going to have with any luck, time permitting some interesting telecaster coming up. Hopefully, three of them, a Jim Root, a "F" hole thin line with a flame maple cap on swamp ash body, plus a sort of copy of a Princes telecaster.

Depending on how close it is I could be your bunny for the Prince Tele - wanted one for years.

Bridgehouse

@GSPBASSES - have you got a load of bass hardware that you could stick into your Black Friday sale?

GSPBASSES

gavin_axecaster said:

GSPBASSES said:

@DrBob, sorry a slight misunderstanding, that kit was from about 5 years ago, maybe longer. I would imagine if I put that kit together now it would be way over £1000. Although everything in the photo I still have in stock. I did in fact stop selling kits and taking guitars to complete finish a long time ago, but still have lots of hardware. I was seriously thinking of putting that kit and all the staff in the photo in my Black Friday sale. 

A bit of pre-advertising for Black Friday. I'm going to have with any luck, time permitting some interesting telecaster coming up. Hopefully, three of them, a Jim Root, a "F" hole thin line with a flame maple cap on swamp ash body, plus a sort of copy of a Princes telecaster.

Depending on how close it is I could be your bunny for the Prince Tele - wanted one for years.

I will be putting the all Prince T/C up for sale later today, As you inquire about it I thought I'll send you a photograph with all the info first. 

Princess telecaster not-exact copy but quite close. Swamp Ash body with a Walnut strip running through the centre and a Flame Maple cap. It takes a standard Strat hard tail bridge. The neck is Flame Maple with a Flame Maple finger board with 22 frets, headstock is drilled for Kluson’s. 42.5mm wide at the nut, 21mm deep at the 1st fret and 22.5mm at the 12th. Body weight 4lb 7oz, Body is doubled bound with tortoiseshell binding.

£200 inc P&P

gavin_axecaster

Thanks. It looks great but the wide stripe is putting me off I'm afraid.